Romain Bardet made the announcement shortly before the 2024 Tour de France: he will retire in June 2025. This edition of the Grande Boucle will therefore be his last. Enough to give his most ardent supporters the idea of creating a ‘Bardet turn’, a year after the one that paid tribute to Thibaut Pinot?
The memories are still in the heads of all those who were there or who vibrated as rarely in front of their television. The sound of a crowd in a trance, the madness of an Alsatian no-man’s land with its smoke bombs, its flags, its liters of white paint on every corner of the road, and its indescribable emotions. On July 22, almost all of France was stunned by the impressive tribute paid to Thibaut Pinot by his supporters on the occasion of the 20th stage of the Tour de France. On his Vosges training roads, in the climb of Petit Ballon, the Franc-Comtois was treated to a memorable show a few weeks before retiring.
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A year later, will another big name in French cycling also have the right to his “turn”? The idea has spread in recent days on social networks in order to honor Romain Bardet, who will start his eleventh and final Tour de France on Saturday in Florence. Winner of stages on the Grande Boucle (2015, 2016 and 2017), having managed to get on the podium twice (2nd in 2016 and 3rd in 2017), the 33-year-old from Clermont will bow out on the road at the end of the Critérium du Dauphiné in 2025. So to mark the occasion, some are starting to dream of an XXL party on the occasion of his visit to his native region at the Col du Pas de Peyrol, in Auvergne, on July 10, during the 11th stage between Evaux-les-Bains and Le Lioran.
Bardet welcomes a “very nice initiative”
“To encourage him in his region with atmosphere, music, noise and above all encouragement”, wrote the members of his fan club in an appeal launched on social networks relayed in particular by the famous “Collectif Ultras Pinot”. Questioned on this subject this Thursday evening on the sidelines of the presentation of the teams in Florence, Bardet welcomed a “very nice initiative”. “I saw that the day before yesterday, it’s nice! These are young people who do that. We’ll see. Now it has to be natural and spontaneous. It’s not up to me to decide”, confided the rider of the dsm-firmenich PostNL formation, in search of a stage victory in the next three weeks.
“I’m very happy to be at the start, to be able to choose that it’s the last one. I hope I have gathered the ingredients to be a player in my last Tour, trying to be true to who I am by making moves. I have a lot of relaxation, I hope that it will free me up and not be like the last ten years trying not to waste time,” he stressed, confirming that he will be totally disinterested in the battle for the general classification. His objective is clear: an eleventh career victory.
Rodolphe Ryo with Kevin Morand, in Florence (Italy)
